Two of them were magistrates who lobbied for the establishment of the police garrison, court house and gaol that became the nucleus of the town. Their names were Lachlan Macalister and Andrew Allan.

The third was the leader of the bushranging gang that created the need for those establishments. His name was John Tennant.

Lachlan Macalister was an energetic dynamo who had served as a junior officer with the 48th Regiment in Van Diemen’s Land and Newcastle. When the Regiment announced that it was downsizing, and leaving New South Wales for service in India, it offered “redundancy packages” to some of the officers and men. Lachlan accepted a grant of land near Taralga and a half-pay pension, and became a country squire.

He soon found the lifestyle too quiet for his adventurous spirit, so he accepted the position of Justice of the Peace. In those days, that title meant much more than it does now.

As the only government representative in the district he wielded the power of a magistrate, sheriff and feudal Laird all rolled into one. For a time, he was the solitary representative of law and order between Bungonia and Bathurst.

He revelled in the excitement of hunting down armed gangs of escaped convicts that infested the wild mountain country surrounding remote homesteads, swooping down to plunder and terrorize their ex-masters. Lachlan pursued them energetically for hundreds of kilometres, spending weeks in the saddle, enjoying himself so much that his hearty laugh and his booming musket became his trademark from Camden to Twofold Bay.

Andrew Allan, on the other hand, was a wealthy socialite from Sydney who had married the beautiful daughter of one of the richest men in the colony. As the eldest son of the Commissary General [the head of Government stores] he had enjoyed a stellar career in that Department until his father was dismissed from office for alleged shady dealing.

Andrew and his bride relocated to his grant at “Strathallen”, and built a pretty cottage on the site now occupied by the Police Academy, thus becoming the first settlers of any consequence in the vicinity of Goulburn.

He, too, became a magistrate, and evidence suggests that he probably billeted Mounted Police patrols there from time to time. It was he wrote to the Colonial Secretary recommending the establishment of a “lockup” at Goulburn Plains.

The two magistrates became firm friends. They sat together on the bench at the first hearing of the Goulburn Plains Police Court, probably held at Strathallen, in November 1827.

Among their first cases were those of John Tennant and various members of his gang. Tennant was an escaped convict who was dubbed “the Terror of Argyle.” He was an Irish rebel who carved “Death or Liberty” on the butt of his gun. But he deserves to be remembered for much more than that - if not for him, Macalister and Allan would not have sent a barrage of letters to the Governor, recommending the establishment of a gaol, a court-house and a garrison at this place which would later be called Goulburn.

So what happened to them? Andrew Allen lived so lavishly that he borrowed too heavily, went bust, and had to leave the town that he had created.

Lachlan Macalister became first commandant of the Mounted Police in the Southern Division, oversaw the erection of the garrison, and went on to a spectacular career that will see his name mentioned often in these pages.  John Tennant, who as a convict had been one of the three pioneers to drive the first flock of sheep to the Canberra plains and establish the first white settlement in the ACT, later committed the first crime recorded there.

Mount Tennant, his hide-out, is named after him. He escaped the death penalty four times, and is one of the few bushrangers to die in the comfort of his own bed. Surely his record is unique. Can you think of any other bushranger who was instrumental in founding not only a city, but a Federal Capital as well?

If you want to learn more about these men and their times, come and see the whole story at the St. Clair Museum Archives.